Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Colossians · About this commentary
Of No Value Against Indulgence
Colossians 2:20-23
20 If you died with Christ from the elemental spirits of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances, · WEB
The rules are quoted, dated, and then dismissed on the one ground that matters — they do not work.
If you died with Christ from the elemental principles of the world, why do you subject yourselves to ordinances as though living in the world? The argument runs from a past event: a dead man is outside the jurisdiction, so submitting to it again is a category error rather than merely a mistake.
Then the rules are quoted, and the quotation is the criticism. Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch. Three prohibitions with no objects, and the list tightens as it goes.
Verse 22 dates them: all of which perish with use, after the precepts and doctrines of men. The things regulated are consumables that will be gone by evening, and the Lord had made the same observation about what enters a man and passes out Mark 7:18–19.
Verse 23 is the verdict, and it concedes what makes such systems attractive. These things have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed worship, humility, and severity to the body.
And then the finding: they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. The charge is not that asceticism is too hard but that it fails at its own stated task. A regime that disciplines the body while inflating the self has not touched the thing it was aimed at.
settled What this mark means